I've tried to stay out of this topic of conversation, since I don't quite know all the particulars. However, it seems to me that if you want to grab the public's attention on an issue like safety of animals during a film production, it does no good to do something like this when the public isn't focused on it.

Now, however, everybody's talking about The Hobbit. So to do this now creates an incentive for news sites to publish headlines talking about this, and therefore more people will read about it and find interest in it. "All men dream; but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds awake to find that it was vanity; But the dreamers of day are dangerous men. That they may act their dreams with open eyes to make it possible."- T.E. Lawrence

makes it a publicity stunt, not a case of simply doing their job. There were plenty of stories about this when it first came out, and we have no more facts now than we did then. Now it's just opportunism because of the premiere, like Helen Kelly's article about the strike which was resolved 2 years ago. Silverlode

Like I said, I wasn't taking their side or anything. Just saying it's not really surprising. "All men dream; but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds awake to find that it was vanity; But the dreamers of day are dangerous men. That they may act their dreams with open eyes to make it possible."- T.E. Lawrence

The article linked to is from November 20th and is based on a story appearing on Radar.com on Novemeber 19th. Some animals hired for the production died. According to the AHA it would like its jurisdiction expanded to include animal actor housing and treatment while not on set. This position was only made public at this time because the AHA representative at Wellington was called negligent (I'm paraphrasing) by PETA sometime prior to November 19th.

Also, regarding your comment on Kelly's piece: Kelly's opinion piece came some days after Jackson himself brought the issue back to the spot-light in the 'Telegraph' article, and a couple days after PM Key's comments on Hobbit premiere day.

I know no one really wants to talk about this stuff right now, but we should at least try to keep things straight, if only for the sake of posterity.